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Department of Agriculture vets met with the IFA on Wednesday to address ongoing problems with what the IFA called “over the top” implementation of the clean sheep policy by Department personnel at factories.
Over 900 lambs per day, or between 7% and 9% of the kill, are being classified as Category C and ordered home or back to farm, according to analysis by IFA sheep chair Sean Dennehy.
Dennehy said this was imposing unnecessary costs on farmers, is not provided for in EU regulations and is disrupting the normal sale of sheep.
“Nowhere in the Clean Livestock Policy is there reference to sending home consignments of lambs or using arbitrary figures of 10% Category C to refuse loads of lambs.”
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